If you want information about Longhorn, have a look at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/
I have been to a couple of Microsoft presentations about Longhorn, the
repeating message is "write .NET code" and "separate GUI code from logic".
Whatever code you write today, probably won't become obsolete at once,
Microsoft will still support Winforms and Webforms in addition to Avalon.
The message from Microsoft is that all new features and technologies will
only be available in managed versions, not Win32.
You indicate that your project will finish around the same time as Longhorn
ships, this is in several years time. The last date I heard was 2006, this
could mean anything from January to December, if you are a pessimist, early
2007 would probably be more accurate. If you are going to use Longhorn
specific features, your application will only work on Longhorn. If your
product is meant for business, a lot of companies won't upgrade immediately.
If you have followed the press lately, Microsoft has extended support for
NT4, showing that companies are conservative about upgrading.
If you still want to develop for Longhorn, get yourself a MSDN subscription.
From the subscriber downloads, download the latest build of Longhorn. Be
prepared to change your code a lot because Longhorn is still in Alpha stage
and a lot things will change. In the presentations I attended they refused
to show us code because they new it would change.
One thing you definitely should get is the latest build of Visual Studio
2005, this is in a "community preview". This means that they took a build
that looked OK and released it, betas are expected later this year. Download
it from MSDN. VS2005 includes .NET 2.0, which contains a number of new
features that will be continued on in Longhorn. You should also look into
SQL server 2005 if you are using databases. Parts of Longhorn WinFS is based
on the new SQL server. Both VS2005 and SQL Server 2005 are expected "first
half 2005"
Chris
